May 28, 2004

We had some lunch today at Crave, which seems to be a worthy new restaurant, just off State Street on Gorham (easy to miss if you're walking up State Street, but just a few steps away):

Walking back to the Law School, I saw a man preaching from the concrete pulpit that overlooks Library Mall:

He was holding up two signs and imploring people to open their hearts to religion.

A man with a long white ponytail, sitting on a metal bench just in front of the pulpit, was trying to eat his box lunch in peace:

Suddenly, the white ponytail man starts shouting back at the preacher man: "Why don't you just shut the f*ck up? What makes you think you have anything to say to me?" The preacher yells back, getting quite passionate, saying he was trying to teach love. The white ponytail man taunts the preacher, he shakes a plastic fork at him and dares him to come down from the pulpit and confront him face to face. The preacher man gets angry and throws down his signs and turns but then stops himself. The white ponytail man gets more heated up, saying, "You are so f*cking arrogant! You have nothing to offer me!" Sounding uncannily like Kirk Douglas playing Vincent Van Gogh in Lust for Life, the preacher seethes, "I want to help humanity!"

It's nicer than Qdoba. Cloth napkins and good table service. Nice sandwiches and salads and desserts. Crabcakes, oysters, fanciful martinis. Lots of different greens in the decorating scheme. I thought it looked nice.

As to the fife (piccolo) guy--no, it was somebody else. Or maybe I just wouldn't recognize him without the orange suit. Funny, I never done a picture of that guy. He's a fixture in library mall. The people who run the foodcarts really don't like him. Walking by, the music seems nice, I think, but hearing it all day long, I've heard, is hard on the nerves.